{"id":657121,"date":"2026-06-25T07:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T07:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657121\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T07:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T07:33:08","slug":"i-hear-hes-extremely-liberal-trump-offers-first-comments-on-andy-burnham-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657121\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I hear he\u2019s extremely liberal\u2019: Trump offers first comments on Andy Burnham | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has labelled Andy Burnham<\/a> \u201cextremely liberal\u201d, in his first public comments about the former Greater Manchester mayor since he emerged as the frontrunner to replace Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

The US president told reporters Burnham \u201cprobably won\u2019t open up the North Sea\u201d for oil exploration, and that \u201cthe UK is dying\u201d, signalling that the newly elected Labour MP could face a rocky relationship with Trump.<\/p>\n

Burnham has been critical of Trump in the past, describing American politics as \u201cpolarised\u201d and \u201cpoisonous\u201d while on the campaigning trail in Makerfield this month.<\/p>\n

As rioters stormed the US Capitol in 2021, Burnham posted on X: \u201cAny UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked on Wednesday what he knew about Burnham, Trump said: \u201cI don\u2019t know, I think I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear he\u2019s extremely liberal, extremely, so that means he probably won\u2019t open up the North Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Trump\u2019s election victory in November 2024, Starmer has sought to pursue a conciliatory approach with him, and initially drew praise for his deft handling of the unpredictable president, but their relationship deteriorated over the Iran conflict.<\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s route to No 10 appears wide open, with few other Labour MPs being discussed as potential challengers.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments on Burnham came during a meeting with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte.<\/p>\n

Trump and Nato\u2019s Mark Rutte speak during a meeting in the Oval Office. Photograph: Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Rutte is visiting \u2060Washington to try to ease \u200bstrains in the alliance over the Iran war and Trump\u2019s threats to draw down troops in Europe, ahead of a pivotal Nato leaders\u2019 summit in July in Ankara.<\/p>\n

Trump, a longtime Nato critic who has called the alliance a \u201cpaper tiger,\u201d has been angered by allies\u2019 \u2060refusal to support the US in the Middle East conflict or help reopen the strait of Hormuz, after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in February.<\/p>\n

Trump expressed particular disappointment with the UK \u2013 along with Italy, Germany and Spain.<\/p>\n

During the meeting, Rutte used cardboard charts to show how much Nato countries have stepped up \u2060their defence spending since Trump first came into office in 2017.<\/p>\n

He also said thousands of US planes had taken off from bases in Europe during the war, pointing to that cooperation \u200bas a sign of the allies\u2019 support.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there \u200chave been isolated cases about which you are really disappointed, but generally speaking your European allies have been there,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n

Trump appeared unconvinced, at times interrupting Rutte to disagree with him, \u200cthough he praised his leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really have done a good job, and I think if anybody else were in that position, we wouldn\u2019t even be meeting today, to be honest with you, because we were let down,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

With the Press Association and Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has labelled Andy Burnham \u201cextremely liberal\u201d, in his first public comments about the former Greater Manchester…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-657121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}